Today we look at Peacemaker teaming up with a variety of DC characters to take on Kobra.
In “Our Lives Together,” I spotlight some of the more interesting examples of shared comic book universes. You know, crossovers that aren’t exactly crossovers.
THE PROBLEM WITH TEAM-UP COMICS
As I have noted in the past, the old newsstand format lent itself to the popularization of team-up comic books, as most (not all, of course, but most) comic book purchases back in the day were impulse purchases. In other words, you grabbed a comic book when you were at the newsstand or the drugstore and you grabbed whatever comic book looked the coolest to you. And if you liked Spider-Man and, say, Thor, if you saw a comic book starring Spider-Man AND Thor, then you just got two heroes for the price of one. As we got to the direct market model, comic book customers were coming to the comic book store mostly for comic books that they wanted before they got there. And then, comic book readers wanted comic books that “mattered.” One-off stories between Spider-Man and another superhero weren’t really going to affect the continuity of either character, so team-up books were slowly phased out.
When team-up books were still running, though, there was this fascinating issue that writers had to deal with. You see, readers and writers alike would like to do multi-issue storylines (readers because it gave the stories a more epic feel and writers because they could come up with a single plot that could take the place of multiple issues instead of having to come up with a new plot for each issue). The problem, though, is how do you do a team-up story that takes multiple issues when the whole conceit of the team-up book is that there is a new team-up each issue? Well, quite simply, you just somehow balance multiple characters into a single story, with a new character joining the narrative in each issue until the end. Simple in theory, REALLY hard in practice.
That takes us to the Peacemaker serial in Showcase ’93 #6-11. Showcase ’93 was DC’s attempt to bring back the superhero anthology, using the tried and true Batman universe for the main feature to get readers to pick up the comic and then two backups featuring other characters from the DC universe where they could experiment a bit (oh, and the covers would all be by famous artists).
In Showcase ’93 #6 (with a Robin main feature back before Robin had his own comic), Peacemaker started a story by Mike Baron, Gary Barker and Jose Marzan Jr. With the fall of Communism, Peacemaker headed to Poland to reclaim his family’s old estate, with the spirit of his Nazi father haunting him (that was a common hallucination for Peacemaker, as his dad messed him up GOOD)…
Peacemaker discovered that Kobra was using his house as a staging property for some mysterious plot and Kobra was not happy that a superhero (of sorts) was now involved in his affairs…
Kobra sent some of his soldiers (who were mutated reptilian creatures) after Peacemaker and one of them actually got the drop on him, but luckily, Deathstroke showed up to save the day!
As it turned out, Deathstroke was on a mission in the area searching for some kidnapped Somali kids and he figured he could use Peacemaker’s help on the mission…
They discovered that Kobra’s plot involved some sort of TV technology…
Meanwhile, Kobra decided to hire Deadshot and send him after Peacemaker and Deathstroke with special bullets that will put them under Kobra’s command…
This leads to an awesome issue (probably my favorite of the arc), with Deadshot vs. Deathstroke and Peacemaker…
They try to negotiate with Deadshot, but he correctly notes that no one would ever hire him if he could just be convinced to fight for the other side, so they instead show him that Kobra was planning on killing him after the mission was done, and that’s enough to get Deadshot on to their side…
Cary Nord takes over penciling duties on the ninth issue and we follow Peacemaker and Deathstroke to a TV technology convention where Peacemaker hilariously recognized En Vogue…
Katana is also there, because, well, of COURSE she is, and she teams up with the guys…
Kobra, though, is able to capture Deadshot and he plans to use him to take down the others…
I love how much of a shaggy dog story this thing is. It’s just all over the place, but I love it!
The front for Kobra is a Japanese TV company, so one of Kobra’s agents convinces Doctor Light to help them (as after all, Deadshot is an assassin and Deathstroke is not exactly a superhero)…
Doctor Light captures Deathstroke and Katana while Peacemaker is captured while trying to rescue Deadshot…
However, Peacemaker DID manage to get Deadshot to the point where Deadshot could free himself, so he then helped Peacemaker out…
And Doctor Light realized that she was on the wrong side of things…
The whole thing really comes down to the heroes just destroying the factory where Kobra was manufacturing the mind control televisions. It is hilarious how simple the whole thing really is, they just blow it up, amidst a whole ton of gunfire and stuff like that (and Kobra’s main agent decides to turn herself into a reptilian creature as it is better than going to jail)….
This comic really is just a big ol’ action film, filled with explosions and guns and fight and lots and lots of C-list DC characters. I really loved this silly look at a fairly ignored section of the DC Universe (at the time).
Okay, folks, if you have a suggestion for another interesting piece of shared continuity, drop me a line at [email protected]!
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